Controversial Tether Issues $300 Mln In New Tokens, Critics React

Fiat currency-backed altcoin Tether stirred up some controversy on March 20 as they issued another 300 million DST tokens at $1 per token.

According to data retrieved by Omni Explorer, the tokens were released on Tuesday at 6:51PM UTC. Around the same time, BTC did see an increase in price, though not by too much. At that time, Bitcoin was trading for some $9,070, an increase of about 6% within 24 hours.

Another point that critics, such as anonymous blogger Bitfinex’d, take issue with is how Tether is linked with Bitfinex, the fifth ranked crypto exchange by 24-hour volume as per CoinMarketCap. The criticism is that this partnership lacks transparaency considering how it has not conducted an external audit of its cash reserve. An audit was supposed to transpire in January, but did not push through as they cut ties with their auditor before it could even happen.

Tether potentially has enough cash reserves in a Puerto Rican bank to match its tokens, however they will still need to reform their KYC/AML procedures otherwise they may very well run the risk of being shut down.